Police investigating drive-by paintballing in Pentagon City

Someone in a passing vehicle shot several people with paintballs in Pentagon City this weekend, sending at least one victim to the hospital.

The two incidents happened about two hours apart Friday night, along S. Eads Street near the Amazon HQ2 construction site. At least four people were struck by paintballs fired by the passenger inside an older, silver sedan, police said.

From an ACPD crime report today:

ASSAULT & BATTERY (Significant), 2022-03180231/0254, 1400 block of S. Eads Street/15th Street S. as S. Eads. At approximately 7:24 p.m. on March 18, police were dispatched to the report of an assault. Upon arrival, it was determined the two victims were walking in the area when the suspect vehicle approached and the passenger discharged a paintball gun striking the victims, a parked vehicle and the door to a business. At approximately 9:10 p.m., police were dispatched to the report of an assault and determined two additional victims were walking in the area when they were struck by the suspect discharging a paintball gun from a vehicle. One victim self-transported to an area hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. The suspect vehicle is described as a silver, older model four door sedan. There are no suspect descriptions at this time. The investigation is ongoing.

One of the victims posted about the incident on a local Facebook group.

“Crystal City folks, watch out,” the victim posted. “Some idiots shot us with souped up paintball guns tonight…. this happened at the corner of 15th St and S Eads St.”

She added that it happened while walking home from the nearby Whole Foods store.

More on what transpired, from the victim’s post:

We suddenly heard what sounded like rapid gunfire. Immediately my ear got hit, [my husband’s] chest did too. We then kept getting hit all over non stop. With the adrenaline rushing we had no idea what was happening and thought we had really been shot, luckily it was only paintballs! We eventually see where it’s coming from, which was a car full of idiots shooting a souped up paintball gun and we were their targets. We tried to take cover behind a van but they turned down another road and started tearing into us again until we were out of their sight. […] They lit us up pretty good, the pictures don’t show how bad the bruises/welts are. My back and knee are covered. [My husband’s] wrist and shoulder got hit as well. One pic shows how close they got to my eye.  It’s ridiculous that people think this is funny. Now that our adrenaline has calmed down we are thankful it wasn’t worse, but hope they find these punks before they do real damage.

Hat tip to Alan Henney